Despite an 11-1 record with nine first-round stoppages, the former IFL welterweight has battled tooth and nail to keep a career in mixed martial arts going in a Canadian province where MMA is not yet legal.

He’s dealt with injuries, bad jobs, bad luck and a bevy of wannabe “pitfighters” while building his name in Toronto. But somehow, he’s managed to make it all work.

Patrick hails from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, where MMA remains illegal. It’s the most densely populated province in Canada with an estimated population of 13 million people and, by UFC president Dana White’s estimation, the most rabid fan base the sport knows.

But Section 83 of the Canadian Criminal Code summarily bars prizefighting – meaning you can’t buy a ticket to watch a fight. Local competitors have to travel to different provinces to get experience.

As such, Patrick has never been the hometown hero when he fights.

“You’re always the guy they bring into lose,” Patrick said. “You’ve always got to spoil the party when you beat the hometown guy.”

And Patrick has done that just about every time out of the gate.

In his young twenties, Patrick got a traveling education in MMA and moved to Montreal to train with Wagnney Fabiano and Georges St-Pierre, and later, migrated briefly to Las Vegas to work with then blue belt Robert Drysdale before he settled in Toronto to fight with the IFL.

He now owns a gym in the city but shies away from saying he teaches mixed martial arts.

“That’s a very important distinction,” Patrick said.

Instead, he teaches jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, and boxing. If a student wants to find his way to mixed martial arts, he’s there to help them. He’s certainly not advertising it, though.

Nevertheless, the sport has grown leaps and bounds in recognition from the time Patrick first started training; he doesn’t feel as much of a pariah. But like many cities with a new fan base, MMA has given rise to a lot of self-described “pitfighters” who fight on the “underground” circuit.

“Then you’ve got Johnny’s Tae Kwon Do teaching MMA around the block now, and all of a sudden they’re an expert,” Patrick said.

Patrick, who has often worked security in rough clubs, is both amused and exasperated by the surge in popularity.

“We have the most pitfighters in the world here per capita,” Patrick said. “They can come above ground and start making some money or they can stop talking and get real. These guys watch too much ‘Braveheart’ and Van Damme and run with it.”

For all he’s been through, Patrick doesn’t need to fake toughness.

Last July, he was working for a television show at an MMA event in Gatineau, Quebec, and partied with friends afterward. At the end of the night, Patrick walked into the promoter’s hotel room and was reportedly cornered by up to ten men wielding stun guns, the result of a dispute over the event’s production costs. He woke up two days later in the hospital after doctors put him in a medically induced coma.

“People asked me to tell them what really happened,” Patrick said. “I honestly don’t remember. I think the promoter didn’t pay some unsavory characters. Wrong place at the wrong time.”

Patrick earned a one-fight stint in the IFL’s Dragons where he defeated Ray Steinbeiss but was cut from the organization after he blew out his ACL. He was on the sidelines for nearly a year.

A low point was working a $60-a-day job in a foundry to make ends meet.

“It was like the Terminator, you know that steel pit where he goes to fight the T1000?” Patrick asked. “The boss was like, ‘You’re a hard worker. Stay in school and don’t come back here. Don’t end up here like me.'”

Patrick has gotten back on his feet since and is now anxious to prove himself on a bigger stage. He’s not a fan of the tough-guy image many famous fighters live by.

“Without the guy I’m fighting, I have no guy to fight,” Patrick said. “So how can I really hate this guy? He’s doing the exact same thing that I’m doing. How can I really hate this guy? It’s ridiculous. If you hate everybody you fight, you will be hating five guys a year for the rest of your life. That’s a lot of hate in your lifetime.

“I’m not going to be one of these guys (who says) ‘I’m going to kill him, I’m going to bite his head off. I’m going to kill his mom.’ You see your mom watching that, she’s going to be embarrassed to know you.”

In a place where it’s illegal to step into the cage, the true warriors stand out like sore thumbs.

“If 98 percent of people are driving a red car, two percent are driving a blue car, so that’s a lot of blue cars on the road,” Patrick said. “The blue cars are guys like Sean Pierson, Mark Bocek, etc.

“The real guys all know each other because you’re used to dealing with these other guys so much. Anybody with a glimmer of reality really shines through.”

Patrick looks forward to the day MMA is legal in Ontario. For once, he’d like to be the hometown hero.

Steven Marrocco is a staff reporter for MMAjunkie.com and an MMA contributor for The Vancouver Sun.

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